According to Elections Canada, it's official: The Conservatives cheated in the 2006 federal election campaign. The latest evidence came yesterday when formal charges were laid against the Conservative Party itself and assorted senior officials including former campaign chief and current Senator Doug Finley.

Let's pause to allow the full significance of that statement time to steep. Elections Canada, the national, non-partisan institution charged by statute with overseeing the clean and accountable conduct of national elections, believes the Harper Conservatives incorrectly re-directed $1.3 million to unlawfully amplify its 2006 advertising budget.

Let's forget the almost $800,000.00 that Conservative candidates received that they weren't entitled to. The Conservatives broke the law, bringing their entire 2006 victory into question.

Stephen Harper is calling it an "accounting matter". So was the Enron scandal.

This is a very serious matter, that leaves Jack Layton with a bit of a dilemma. He was contemplating supporting the corporate tax cuts, which would have probably had Tommy Douglas and David Lewis, rise from their graves to slap him upside the head.

NDP Leader Jack Layton's price for supporting the upcoming budget might have just gone up, in light of charges laid against four top Conservative officials over an election financing scheme. Layton, the only opposition leader Harper has any real hope of inducing to support next month's federal budget, used strong words to describe the charges. "(Tory officials) may well have been responsible for breaking election laws and causing unfair election results . . . You have a government that you cannot trust with our precious democracy, that's what I would boil it down to," Layton told The Canadian Press.

We can expect the Conservative talking points machine to go into overdrive, but there are some things you can't talk your way out of. They cheated. They stole money. They have to go.

Or as someone once told us:

”Bend the rules, you will be punished; break the law, you will be charged; abuse the public trust, you will go to prison.”

4 comments:

"Abuse the public trust"...oh, that's perfect. Exactly what the Harpies have been doing.We really ought to have a petition to send Jack Layton, telling him what the people of Canada want him to do. He is in a position of power now, so let's make him step up to the plate and show us it's real hitting power. Instead of supporting corporate tax cuts, he can line up with the Liberals and help put the Harpies out of power.

I also think that while the Conservatives try spinning their way out of the election fraud charges, that Canadians should take note of the endless attack ads on television. Why are they running them? I know they are not breaking any rules, because when I contacted Elections Canada about running ads outside of elections they said there are no regulations, but to me it seems like unethical behaviour from a party which seems to have a bottomless money pit to campaign whether it's inside or outside of an election. They are shameless. I hope other Canadians find this as offensive as I do.